About a month shy of his 14th birthday, David W. Reed set off on a bike ride from his Schuylkill Haven home on Aug. 21, 1985.

But David, a quiet boy who loved riding his five-speed bike and dreamed of becoming a jet pilot, never came back.

Four months later, his remains, too decomposed to determine how he died, were found in a wooded area a few miles from his Schuylkill County home.

On Thursday-- a week after David would have turned 36 -- his body will be exhumed from Schuylkill Memorial Park cemetery and examined by a nationally known forensic anthropologist in the hope his fate finally can be determined.

"This is going to put us in the best possible position to solve this case," said Trooper Robert S. Betnar of state police at Schuylkill Haven.

Betnar said new information that surfaced in 2005 has rekindled the investigation. Exhuming and examining the remains, using advanced technology unavailable in 1985, may lead to finding out how, and maybe why, David died, he said.

"We made a lot of progress," he said. "Additional people have been cooperating, and more information has come forward."

As in 2005, police will not reveal anything about what new information they have.

However, in her Jan. 9 ruling allowing the exhumation, a county judge wrote that police now believe the boy's death to be a homicide.

Authorities hope the exhumation will "corroborate the information we received," county Coroner Joseph Lipsett said.

Joseph J. Reed, one of David's two surviving siblings, hopes so, too.

"It's a long time coming with no answers," said Reed, 46, now of Fort Myers, Fla. "Twenty-two years is a long time. That boy ain't out there celebrating a birthday or Halloween or even just having a beer."

David's sister, Virginia, who pushed for an answer to David's death when police announced a breakthrough in 2005, has since died.

"Ginny carried us on, and started it, and I grant, I'll finish it," Joseph Reed said.

David Reed's mother, Joan E. Reed, died in June 2000, and his stepfather, Edward F. Frederick, in October 2005.

Another brother, James Reed, lives in Ohio and deferred questions to Joseph.

Bike ride

David's mother called police when her son failed to come home on that August day. Later that day, his prized bicycle was found under a railroad bridge on Caldwell Street, about 3 1/2 blocks from his home.

"If this boy liked to ride his bike, why wouldn't he take his bike with him?" his aunt, Judy Adams of Schuylkill Haven, asked in a recent interview.

Exactly how David's remains were found -- in the woods between railroad tracks and a cemetery off Caldwell Street at the Cressona border -- are unclear. One version has a Cressona man's dog carrying home a jawbone.

But according to an autopsy report by county pathologist Richard Bindie, on Dec. 15, 1985, a man searching the woods for a cat found a skull and called local police, who discovered David's skeletal remains, scraps of clothing still clinging to them.

The remains were found in a place where children just didn't hang out, police said.

David's body was identified through dental records.

Bindie could not determine a cause and manner of death because there was so little soft tissue left, but noted the death seemed suspicious.

He said in his report there was "no definite evidence of pre-mortem trauma."

He concluded that David's bones and teeth, and family members' statements that he had lost weight before his death, indicated David may have died of complications from juvenile diabetes.

Police never quite believed that, Lipsett said.

Lipsett, a retired state trooper who became coroner earlier this month, was involved in the initial investigation.

On Jan. 9, county Court Judge Jacqueline L. Russell granted former county Coroner David Dutcavich's request to exhume David's remains to try to find out how and why he died.

"Nonscientific evidence uncovered in the much more in-depth investigation conducted by Trooper Betnar, as compared to that previously performed by the police after the 1985 disappearance of David Wellington Reed and the discovery of his remains, indicates foul play was involved in the death of the decedent," Russell wrote.

The parts of the petition requesting the exhumation relating to what new evidence police have has been sealed by the court.

"We're not at liberty to say if there is any nonscientific information -- for example, information obtained through interviews or tips -- at this point because it may affect the outcome of the investigation," said state police Sgt. Craig Stine.

He said numerous calls have come in as a result of recent publicity about the exhumation.

David's remains will be catalogued by Bindie at Pottsville Hospital, then shipped to forensic anthropologist Dr. Anthony B. Falsetti at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Lipsett said.

Falsetti, who is in Russia with a National Geographic crew, could not be reached for comment.

Falsetti has worked on a number of high-profile cases, including the investigation into the remains of three people found in the backyard of a home occupied by murder suspect Hugo Selenski of Wilkes-Barre; the identification of bodies recovered from the 1996 crash of TWA Flight 800; and the identification of victims of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center.

Seeking closure

While police aren't promising any resolution, David's family is hoping that this time, the investigation will bring some peace of mind.

Adams said she believes her nephew was murdered and police failed to follow through on the initial investigation.

"I don't think it was handled very fairly or well," she said. "The state police told my older brother they were going to bring in dogs" to search for David's body. "They never brought in dogs. Any answer after that was that they were looking into it, and you never heard anything again.

"Schuylkill Haven is a small town -- everybody knows everybody's business. I know there's someone out there who has to know something. Someone has been carrying this guilt around with them all these years."

Her dismay over the initial police response was echoed by the late Virginia Reed in a 2005 interview.

"They kept telling me he was a runaway, but I knew my brother and knew he wasn't," she said at the time.

Joseph Reed praised Betnar for his efforts.

"If it wouldn't be for Betnar, this case would be nothing, and that's the God's honest truth," he said. "Nobody else cared."

Virginia Reed had said her brother was "a kid who was too trusting, and what happened was he trusted the wrong people."

Joseph Reed recalled how his little brother would bicycle to his house across town every summer morning.

"He would come to my house every morning," Joseph Reed said. "Then, one morning, he didn't show up and my wife thought it was weird. The next thing we know, that's the day he was murdered.

"He was quiet, Davey was. He loved coming to my house and seeing my kids. My daughter still has the stamp books her and Davey made, and she was 3 years old."

Teacher John Zuber wrote a tribute to David in the 1985-86 yearbook of Schuylkill Haven Area Middle School, where David was in seventh grade. "There will forever be one less jet trail in the sky," Zuber wrote of the boy who played basketball, rode his bike and dreamed of soaring through the atmosphere.

In Florida, Joseph Reed waits.

"I just want to see justice," he said. "I just want to know exactly what happened."

 THE FACTS: Left his home in Schuylkill Haven for a bicycle ride about noon Aug. 21, 1985. His body was found in woods a few miles away on Dec. 15, 1985. An autopsy failed to determine the cause or manner of death because of the advanced decomposition of his body.  STATUS:...

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